ALIAS - Mozart aka Rossini

(2004) 45' / for trombone (also naration), percussion, tape, and string orchestra
mostly after themes von G. Rossini but with a trace of Mozart

text: Manfred Weiß

Premiered in January 2005, in Pforzheim, Germany with Southwest German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim, Mike Svoboda (tbn), and Sebastian Tewinkel (cond.) and committed by the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra.

Instrumentation

solo trombone (tenor and alto trombone)
percussion (1 player) with:

• 1 box of partially filled with matches , 1 candel, 1 large kitchen knife, 1 knife sharpener, 1 medium sized pot, 1 frying pan, 1 small sauce pan, 1 large cast-iron pot, 4 pot lids, 1 pepper grinder, 2 salt shakers, 4 wine glasses, 6 plates to be broken, 1 metal cocktail-mixer, 1 cork screw, 1 egg cutter with metal wires, 1 metal hand operated mixer, 1 metal mixing bowl, 1 watering can half-filled with water, 1 cheese grinder, 1 electric mixer, 1 grater, 1 vegetable peeler, 1 vergetable brush, 6 potatoes (to be washed), 2 large carots to be peeled, 6 eggs o be cracked open, 10  hasel nuts or equivelent, 1 bottel of wine to be corked open, 1 garbage can, rather large to throw some of the above in, 1 sheet of paper to make a crackling noise, 1 Toy Piano range c bis c‘‘ - sounding an octave higher, 1 small triangle, 1 pair of medium large concert cymbles á due, 2 massive objects such as mini-anvil, 1 bass drum with foot pedal from drum-set, 1 rcd or mp3 player -

strings 5.4.3.2.1.

program note

When the Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester and their conductor Sebastian Tewinkel commissioned me to write a work reflecting on some historical material, I was of course honored and excited. Yet at the same time, after having already written several works of this sort such as 14 attempts to love Richard Wagner (2002), My God Mozart (2002), Love Hurts - Carmen Remix (2003), Reflective Stuctures (2003), Clara, Robert and Johannes - fantasy on a romatic triangle (2004), I have had enough of that kind of stuff. Like most other composers, I too would rather write notes which are exclusively my own design, instead of remixing those of others. But a commission is a commission and one has to make a living, so I decided to do as many others had done before me and I hired a ghost-writer. Bach did of course. How else could he have created so many works and children at the same time? Beethoven, Schumann, Strauss (even he!), Leonard Bernstein, Andrew Lloyd Weber - they all made generous use of this age-old tradition. And Rossini was, as we all know now, the master at panning off the works of his ghost writter - good old Mozart - as his own works. But why not? The persons commissioning the works don‘t really care how the piece gets written, as long as it arrives on time and the concert (and party afterwards) can happen as planned. Why should a composer go to all the trouble to write down all those notes himself, when that tedious work can be outsourced? A ghost-writer isn‘t half as expensive as you might think! Let me ask you: how is a composer supposed to have time to be a creative artist if he has to deal with such menial tasks? Nowadays fancy ideas are „in“. Hard work is „out“. - Mike Svoboda (written by his assistant), January 2005